"Yes. Be good enough to give orders for the burial of my grandfather in the most respectable manner practised among persons of his class. If,”—she added, with a slight look of scorn-"you are so disposed, I shall be happy to have the expense deducted from the first payment of the annuity of fifty pounds which you promised me; and I beg leave to say, that it is not my intention ever to trouble you for the payment of any further portion of it.” Here Mr Nugent endeavoured to escape from his sense of humiliation by adopting a more cordial tone. "Oh my dear Maria, why need there be any question of money between you and me. You must be aware that it would give me much gratification to supply you to the utmost. I only spoke of a trifling annuity as thinking it might be pleasanter to your feelings than any larger income." Baseness, thought Maria, has still one deep lower than another. She said aloud-"We shall be able to speak of this hereafter. In the meantime I rely on you for doing whatever is most right and respectful towards the remains of my grandfather. I wish them to be buried, if possible, where those of his family rest, in the burial-ground of the ruin which was the scene of the late fire. I will now go to Mrs Nugent, to whom I wish to announce that I have your permission for remaining here till I may find it convenient to remove to some other -home." She hesitated at the last word, for she felt in pronouncing it that she had now no home on earth, and that it might, probably, be the happiest lot for her to be carried on the same road as her grandfather, to be laid beside him. She preserved, however, her self-possession, and, with an involun tary air of indulgent condescension, shook hands with Mr Nugent before she left the room. He immediately gave directions for having the funeral of the old basketmaker conducted with the utmost decorum, and sent a confidential person to the cottage to take charge of the arrangements, and see his orders executed. Women were employed to remain with the body, who relieved each other, and at nightfall the two sat together in the little room below, in the midst of the few implements and articles of furniture, the bench, the osiers, the tools, and the baskets. Among these was one which he had finished on the previous morning before setting out to see Maria. The women were nodding on opposite sides of a solitary candle, when they were startled by a knock at the door, and on opening it two figures were dimly seen, one of whom, a tall female, entered, wrapped in a dark cloak. She said in a low voice a few words, which, half asleep as they were, they did not understand. She then walked up the frail and narrow stair, down which a faint light shone from the chamber above where lay the body. The woman disappeared noiselessly from the eyes of the astonished watchers, and some minutes passed before they regained courage to follow her. They did so with some trembling and treading on tip-toe, and when they had gained the top of the stair they saw her kneeling beside the mean pallet-bed, bent over one hand of the corpse which she held in hers. They observed that the old man's favourite black cat had seated itself on the small table, which sustained a candie, and, while they gazed into the room, fixed steadily its pale green eyes upon them. The woman, they thought, sobbed faintly, and, looking at each other, they turned and retreated to the lower room. In the meantime the mourner looked at the tranquil face of the corpse, and then, again drawing her veil over her wet eyes, walked down the stair and passed through the room. The door was closed, but one of the women came forward and opened it, and saw the second figure in the darkness without, waiting for the one within. The visitor to the corpse glided silently away, and the two shadows were lost in the deep night. CHAPTER XII. Maria spent many of the following hours in reading and in prayer, in meditating on the character and history of the old man whose corpse she had visited, and endeavouring to retrace the probable condition of his family, and to divine what sort of person she would have become, had she been brought up as what she really was. On the following morning, after a disturbed sleep, she awoke with even more anxiety for the future than at any time since the discovery of her origin. It was possible that she might have an answer from Arthur, with whom she had never before permitted herself to correspond. She resolved, however, not to indulge her own reflections, but to act decidedly, and she employed herself, except while at breakfast with Mr and Mrs Nugent, in writing to several of her friends to announce the change in her position, and to state the measure she had resolved on, in which she begged their assistance; indicating, at the same time, very clearly, her determination not to become dependent on any one, but to obtain her subsistence by her own efforts. By this time the rumour of strange events and discoveries at the Mount had spread far and wide. Members of different neighbouring families presented themselves as visitors in the course of the morning, or sent to make civil enquiries. From some of these persons Maria felt confident of real friendliness. Nevertheless she declined to appear, and sat intent upon her task till her maid brought her, not a message, but a letter from Arthur. It had no post-mark, or direction, and contained only these words;"DEAREST MARIA, more the door was closed upon them in the same room, and they had sprung, for the first time, into each other's arms. His arrival had dispersed all doubts and fears. She knew, without the help of words, that she was still loved; and his manner soon made her feel that she had never been dearer to him, or their engagement in his eyes more precious and sacred. "Thank Heaven!" he said, after some minutes of silent emotion and overpowering joy, "Thanks be to Heaven! you are now free and can be mine, and I can work for both of us, and feel that it is I for whom you live, and not for cold and proud relations.' "No," she whispered, "less free than ever, for I must now begin to regard myself as wholly yours, however long it may be before our union is realized." "Why long? Not, I trust, at the utmost more than a few weeks. My position in the world is changed, and my mind, I trust, even more so. But as to outward circumstances, I have been lying for many weeks seriously ill in body, and suffering, also, from the strangest series of phantasms and hallucinations. During all this time I have been attended with sedulous watchfulness by an old grand-uncle, who has returned from India, after a life spent in the tropics. He, I know, will assist me with the means of settling myself, and my profession will do the rest, when I have hope and love to cheer me on. You will be contented without magnificence; and, with clear consciences, we shall both be happy." "Why did you not sooner let me know of your amended prospects?" "It was not till Tuesday evening that "Can you see me now? If not thing of my true position. Your letI was able to rise from bed, or knew any ter reached me on the following morning, and I am here sooner than my physician would have recommended. But he knew nothing of the cordial remedy which awaited me at my journey's end." "I wish I could have been there to nurse you. You look thin, dear Arthur, but not ill. Did you suffer much?" "No; I lay, I believe, for the most part in a kind of stupor. To myself I seemed surrounded by many figures, some of whom I had known before and some not, but you were the principal personage among them all. There were Sir Charles Harcourt and Hastings the traveller, the poet Walsingham, the wife of poor Henry Richards, the white-haired and rather short man whom I have heard you talk of as Collins, and old Fowler, your grandfather, whom I knew when I first knew you, and lived as a boy in this neighbourhood with my mother. There were also several others, and the movements and changes of the whole history turned upon a Ring." She held up her hand before his face, which his first impulse was to kiss, but he saw that on one of the fingers was an Onyx Ring. "How on earth did you come by that? It has haunted me as if a magic Ariel were fused amid the gold, or imprisoned in the stone." "I will tell you. My grandfather died on Tuesday evening, the time you say of your recovery. My good friend Mrs Simpson was with him at the last -brought me an old tin snuff-box which I had before seen, and which had been found grasped in the hand of the corpse. It contained a certifi cate signed by Mr Lascelles and the medical man then in attendance upon his wife, that the child of Mrs Wil liams had been received by them from Fowler, and substituted for the dead infant. In the same box, wrapped in a separate paper, was the Onyx Ring. I presume it had been given to the old man by Mr Lascelles as a token which, to him who could not read, would be more expressive than any written document, and would substantiate to his fancy the fact that the supposed Maria Lascelles owed only to accident the being other than Mary Williams." "A curious coincidence, at least, with my visions. But as to the change of your name it is of little importance, for I hope a third will soon obliterate both the former ones. My trance, how unsubstantial soever may have been the forms I conversed with, has at least left on my mind intellectual and spiritual impressions too many, perhaps, and complex, ever to be fully described, but of which you, I trust, as well as I, may reap the benefit through all my life. Now that you keep your hand quiet and let me look at the ring close, I see the old man's head upon it is as beautifully executed as if it were one of Weigall's finest works. It bears, moreover, a curious resemblance to my uncle who has watched me so tenderly in my illness, and I could almost have supposed it a portrait of him." SOME ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF. BY THE IRISH OYSTER-EATER. FASCICULUS THE FIRST. "Duplex libelli dos est; quod movet risum, Et quod prudenti vitam consilio monet."-Phædrus. "He would eat ortolans if he could get them, and though this oysters never tasted so sweet as when he had them upon tick."-Citizen of the World. Scene O'Hara's Divan, French Street. Time-Midnight, or thereabouts. Beverages-Whisky toddy, rum punch, gin twist, cold brandy and water, ditto ditto hot, with sugar. Smokeables-Cubas, Havannahs, Woodville's yellows, Silva's ditto, cheroots, meerchaums, hookahs, yards of clay, Dutch, glazed English and Knockcroghery, short cut, mild canaster, Virginia, pigtail, and returns. Parties extant-THE SQUIREEN, DOCTOR SNOAKER, MR GREEN STREET, the Old Bailey Barrister, AN INSPECTOR OF NATIONAL SCHOOLS, several halfmounted Gentlemen, and the OYSTER-EATer. Squireen (loquitur). Pat, bring another "go" of brandy for the Oyster-Eater; and, Pat, you may bring another for myself, by the powers. Doctor Snoaker. Patricius, "repetatur," as we say, ex cyatho magnoCapiat. Pat. Another go of rum, sir? yes, sir. one of Inspector. Pat, I will take “ whisky." Christians, as the apostle Paul- Lawyer Green Street. Pat, call a new case. Pat. Gin, I think for you, Counseral? The Oyster-Eater. And, Pat, let me have brandy, as the Squireen wishes to treat me, and, d'ye see, mix it stiffer than you did the last. Pat. The last was stiffish, sir. The Oyster-Eater. Well! the last but one then. The Half-mounted. Whiskies all round for us-Pat-whiskies! Pat. a wink. Immediately, gentlemen, in Squireen. I think, gentlemen, by the powers, somebody was knocked down by myself for a song-it couldn't be me, for I'm so dry that I couldn't turn a tune, by the powers-was it yourself, Doctor Snoaker? Dr Snoaker. Me, sir,-paulo majora-you asked the Inspector for a song-cuculus canorus. Inspector. Beg pardon, but the Counsellor was the man-live in harmony with one another-excuse me -it's a rule of the board. we must conciliate; it's a rule of the board. Dr Snoaker. And further, does not your preface state that this new translation of the Scriptures "for the use of Schools," has been compiled by a Protestant clergyman, " under no peculiar views of Christianity doctrinal or practical?" Inspector. True, but nobody reads them-there's no harm done-it's a rule of the board. Green Street. Hem! Ahem! The Half-Mounted. Order, order hear, hear-the Counseral's song. Dr Snoaker. Are you not repudiated by " Power Tuam," who won't take your money, and by " John Tuam," who can't get it-by Protestant, Presbyterian, and Papistyou teach no religion, and you have only those without religion to teachtene simul-Koran or Catechism, all's one-altera quaque hora. Squireen. Order, order, Counseral, by the powers-a song! Green Street. Ahem! A-hem! Really 'tis too bad to force a man—If I must-tol lol de rol-tol lol de rol Green Street. Rule made absolute -I never sing-that is to say, sel. dom or ever, not often-I mean sometimes--not just now-after the Oyster--that's the way it goes-you know Eater. Oyster-Eater. By no means, sir, I couldn't think of Inspector. Do oblige us-it's a rule of the board-all denominations of Christians. Dr Snoaker. Aye, Turks, Jews and Arians-fiat mistura. Inspector. Arians, did you say, Doctor? Excuse me, it's a rule of the board but the Arians, Socinians, and so forth Dr Snoaker. Keep you in your places-and very natural for themDid you not compile a series of Scripture lessons on the principle of the family Shakspeare, in which all passages that can possibly offend" Turk, Jew, Arian, or Atheist, are "purposely omitted?" I use the words of your preface. Inspector. We publish, but nobody reads them-they will keep. Dr Snoaker. And do you not assure us in your preface that these selections, as you call them, are sometimes in the words of the" authorized," and sometimes of the "Douay" version, and sometimes "neither the one nor the other?" the tune, gentlemen, and just chime in altogether, will ye? A song without chorus is like Dr Snoaker. Have you not totally failed to amalgamate different creeds -have you not failed in all your shuffling, equivocating, double-faced attempts to introduce a system of political Christianity" for the use of schools"-have you not built up the public money irrecoverably in sectarian houses, and is not every school where your rules are attempted to be enforced, more like a cock-pit than a place for the education of youth? The Oyster-Eater. Gentlemen, I was going to give an account of my birth, parentage, and Green Street. Pooh! stuff-Ahem! ahem! I know the law-and a chorus without a song is-I mean a song without a chorus Dr Snoaker. Did you not come into office under a solemn declaration from Lord Stanley, that your commission was gratuitous, and did not one of your body consent to become the stipendiary of his fellow commissioners, and does he not flourish about the streets of Dublin in an eleemosynary Inspector. Ambo is good Latin equipage, provided or maintained for him, in addition to a princely mansion out of the funds voted by Parliament for the "Education of the poor of Ireland"-Faugh! Green Street sings "As I was a walking, One fine summer's morning, Dr Snoaker. What is your multitudinous establishment of stipendiaries of high and low degree, but a manufactory of sycophants? What your model schools and training schools but a monument, in cut stone, of Government extravagance? What your system but a contrivance to serve the political uses of your party? What the whole scheme of your commission but the working out of the designs of your despicable faction, that is to say, making Government arbitrary, under pretence of making it popular? Inspector. Excuse me-it's a rule of the board-Christians of all- Dr Snoaker. In short, do the annals of political profligacy furnish any thing like the spectacle of the creatures of a faction being tolerated to withhold the means of enlightenment from any body of tax-payers, who may refuse to submit their course of religious instruction to the surveillance of Commissioners like yours; who bow so low in the worship of faction as unanimously to recommend books to a Christian people, which have been compiled, as they coolly assure us, under no 66 peculiar views of Christianity, doctrinal or practical?" The Oyster-Eater. Autobiography, gentlemen, now-a-days is— Green Street. If I must sing, I really wish, Dr Snoaker, you would stop to draw breath, and let me edge in a note-I'm in possession of the Court. (Sings.) "As I was a walking one"Squireen. By the powers, gentlemen, here's news! The Liberator's come to town! I see by the Dublin Evening Hack, gentlemen, that—by the powers The Half-Mounted. A round of "rums," Pat-Pat, a round of rums! The Oyster-Eater. I'll join you, gentlemen, for the honour of Antigua. Pat, you know my guage. The lives of men eminent for their virtues have ever Dr Snoaker. Patricius, iterumque repetatur-Capiat hora somni haus tus. Pat. Another of the same, sir? Yes, sir. Inspector. "One of raspberry" for me, Pat-particular denomination of Christians Squireen. Don't leave me out, Pat. I can't see to read, by the powers, I'm so dry. Dr Snoaker (reading from the Dublin Evening Hack). "We publish this evening the fifth letter of his Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant, in the case of Chief-Constable Gruff, the facts of which we are at the pains to repeat, fearing they may have escaped the memories of our numerous readers. Chief-Constable Gruff, stationed with his party of police in the village of Bullyraggin, encountered upon the Queen's highway a certain Widow Hoolaghan's pig. This aforesaid porker, being at large without a ring affixed to the cartilage of his nose, as directed by proclamation, was construed and taken by the captain to be a public nuisance, and was accordingly summarily abated by being perforated through the thorax with the sabre of the captain, impelled by the captain's own hand. Now, her majesty's mail, passing that way about twelve o'clock at night, five minutes past twelve being her regular time at Bullyraggin, happened to be overturned by actual contact of the off hind-wheel with the carcass of the abated porker, which remained upon the road, the Widow Hoolaghan declining to prejudice her claim to Justice for Ireland' by tak * Why is not the stipendiary equipage of this stipendiary Commissioner marked and numbered like other hackney carriages? It is certainly a new item in the public expenditure; but of these Commissioners "for the education of the poor of Ireland,” as of the rest, matchless effrontery seems the least of their good qualities.-See Report of Committee of the House of Commons on the Irish Education Enquiry for 1837, wherein will be found an account of the equipage set up for the Stipendiary Commissioner, by his fellow Commissioners out of the funds for promoting" the education of the poor of Ireland." VOL. XLV. NO. CCLXXIX. D |